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T'ranscranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS)' From this article - http://www.extremetech.com/extre... It seems, with the help of a 9-volt battery, wire, crocodile clips, and wet sponges, you can increase your brain’s performance and, more importantly, return your brain to its younger, more malleable and learning-receptive state. The technique, which is lumbered with the fantastic and slightly terrifying name of transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS), is similar to deep brain stimulation (DBS), but it doesn’t involve complex neurosurgery. TCDS runs a very small current — just 2 milliamps — into brain tissue just beneath your scalp; it’s non-invasive, and seemingly quite safe. And this article - http://www.nature.com/news/2011/... - It might sound like some wacky garage experiment, but Vincent Clark, a neuroscientist at the University of New Mexico, says that the technique, called transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS), could improve learning. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency funded the research in the hope that it could be used to sharpen soldiers' minds on the battlefield. Yet for all its simplicity, it seems to work. Volunteers receiving 2 milliamps to the scalp (about one-five-hundredth the amount drawn by a 100-watt light bulb) showed twice as much improvement in the game after a short amount of training as those receiving one-twentieth the amount of current1. "They learn more quickly but they don't have a good intuitive or introspective sense about why," says Clark. The image illustrates how it works: Source: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/... Personally, I will probably never try it, as my brain is one of my most prized possessions. I include it just because its interesting, and who knows, maybe it'll be widely used in the future (although, I probably still wouldn't do it). Neuroscience and Creativity: How to be creative - ''' What did Albert Einstein, James Clerk Maxwell, Isaac Newton, Van Gogh, Richard Feynman and Leonardo Da Vinci, all have in common? '''First, they were all creative and second, they had no idea where their creativity came from. James Clerk Maxwell, the Scottish mathematician who came up with the equations that unified electricity and magnetism, had a strange confession on his deathbed. He insisted that “something within him” discovered the famous equations, not he. He admitted that he had no idea how ideas actually came to him - they simply did. Sometimes, creative people invent causes to their creativity and how they happened to have gotten their ideas, but its a lot like a post-hoc explanation. The explanations are often not very convincing, and are most likely wrong. While we do not explicitly know about how the brain gives rise to creativity, we do know about the outside influences that causes the brain to be creative. According to the video below (which is my source), the chief component of creativity is obsession. '''You have to be obsessive in your domain to get creative results. You have to keep working at it, day after day, month after month and sometimes for years depending on the complexity of the problem, before you get your creative idea. Einstein didn't come up with relativity in a month. If your problem is great don't expect be to done in a short time. '''The component stages of Creativity: All creative processes seem to follow this common pattern: *'Preparation' - This is the part where you work hard. If your area of creativity involves information, you have to get all the relevant information into your head. If you are going to paint, you will have to make sure that every brush stroke is perfect. Michelangelo supposedly drew 4000 paintings as practice before painting the Sistine Chapel (I can't find the source at the moment). You have to do the preparatory work of laying out the foundation of your creativity. *'Incubation' - This is the part where you relax and let the brain do its thing. The one who is creative is not you, its your brain. You have give it freedom to work away at the problem and not be bogged down by thinking about the immediate environment and everyday life. Creative people are often very absentminded. Programmers will often say that when they come upon a problem that they cannot solve, they solve it by taking a break. Most programmers will tell you that they solved their programming problems when they were nowhere near their computers. The break allows their brain to disengage from the world and work on the problem. When I say brain, I mean the unconscious brain. When you are taking a break don't try to force your thoughts, space-out and let your thoughts go where ever they might. In this stage your brain is working on the problem incognito and making new connections, new connections you have never made before. If the problem is great and consequential, you will be making connections no one has ever made before. *'Illumination' - This is the Eureka! moment. This is where you go Aha, why didn't I see that before?. *'Verification' - This is where you check your creative idea against the cold, hard truth of reality. Creativity has nothing to do with IQ: You do not have to be highly intelligent to be creative. There is no relationship between IQ and creativity. There is a much greater relationship between obsession and creativity. A lot of geniuses, such as Albert Einstein, were not young superstars. You do not have to have a high IQ to be creative. Dare to be simple: Simplicity is key. The solutions to great problems are often very simple and elegant. We have a bias to think that great problems require great solutions but that isn't necessarily always the case. From Albert Einstein - Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction. Occam's razor - simpler explanations are, other things being equal, generally better than more complex ones. Being a ''little'' crazy makes you more creative: Emphasis on little. Being a little crazy means you are thinking in ways no one else is thinking in and you can see things in ways other people cannot. Eccentric people have different brain connections and are able to connect things in different ways. Keep an open mind: Thanks to James H. Kelly for suggesting this. It helps in creativity if you tryout lots of different things, no matter how bat-shit crazy they sound. Very often what you take for granted, may be the exact thing you need to scrutinize to figure out the solution to your problem.' '''It is important to rock the boat, so to speak, question everything; most often scientists who become famous are the ones who successfully rock the boat. You don't know its crazy until you try. From James's comment - ''It's very easy to open yourself up and come up with something brilliant, but then, when you think about it rationally, shut it down with a, "maw, that's just too crazy." One of the skills of the creative person is the ability not to reject ideas based on fear or even rationality. Just go with it. If it really doesn't work, you'll run out steam. If not, you probably have something. Be courageous: Creativity requires that you be courageous and try things that you wouldn't normally do. When you try new approaches, things can go horribly wrong, but don't be discouraged, be persistent. You will be wrong more often than you will be right. Even if your are wrong, it means you have figured out one more thing that won't work and have taken one more step towards the solution. Thomas Edison once said I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. Be wrong: Similar to the last one, being wrong is not a bad thing. You won't be right unless you are wrong. And finally... Relax: I'll say it again, you are not creative, your brain is. You must relax and thus allow your brain to work on creative problems. Take holidays, sip on mai tais, have a lie down, take a walk, whatever it takes to disengage your brain from everyday life and zone out. Creative ideas come when you aren't thinking about how to be creative. So relax, put in the hard work and get everything in your brain, and let it worry about how to connect it all together, that's what it is good at.